Chapter 112: Bonus Chapter: Out of sequence chapter that takes place at the beginning of Book One.

A recent scathing review about Torin's lack of agency helped jog my memory that I have been remiss in not getting this bonus chapter out to you all sooner.

This is a new chapter I wrote a couple of months ago that my Patreon supporters will have read already. I've been taking on board some of the crtiicsm about Torin's lack of agency in the early parts of book one. I've refined several of the chapters where he gets pulled pillar to post to give him more input, but decided more needed to be done.

This is the new chapter 2 and it is inserted after the introductory chapter and before Torin meets Dean for the first time. It also provides a bit more of a teaser about what became of Ashli. And has a cameo by a certain green-clad supreme dark sorcerer.

Anyway getting it up now as I'll be writing the book 2 instalment of the hidden precursor events very soon.

 

Chapter 2

The first step was a real doozy and I slammed into the smooth, polished, onyx floor, cracking my hip and face on the hard ground. My effed-up shoulder screamed in protest as I hauled myself back onto my knees and then my feet in a hurry. My hip was going to be bruised after that fall and I could already feel the beginnings of a fat lip swelling up.

Wait, did I take a step, stumble, and fall or was I thrown or ejected somehow? My mind swirled trying to make sense of what was happening and how I got here. Why was my head so fuzzy? This wasn’t a concussion, at least I didn’t think it was. Were people aware they were concussed when they were concussed?

Then I realised I was standing aimlessly in this corridor, surrounded by basalt rock walls of a similar hue to the polished onyx flooring that I’d got up close and personal with moments earlier. Completely heedless of the impending danger that I knew was almost upon me.

I pushed myself to run, to escape, to get away, but my body refused to move like I had no control over it. Anger and panic vied for dominance in my mind.

Then I started to slowly peer down the depths of the long corridor. Despite the oppressive blackness of the walls and floor, there was no hindrance to my vision, and I could see the vestibule with branching exits about thirty metres in front of me. But I already knew about the large chamber up ahead.

There were dozens of small passageways, similar to the one I was in, that connected to the vestibule and one much larger thoroughfare that led inward and deeper to this strangely enclosed building. I needed to go that way, into the thoroughfare and to what was beyond. It wouldn’t be completely secure, but it would be safer than where I was.

If I stayed here, then they would come and I didn’t want that, not at all.

Hang on. How did I know that they would come? And what even were they? What was I so afraid of?

I started to turn in circles and got a look at what was behind me.

Except I didn’t make myself turn around, not consciously. My efforts were entirely focused on trying to get my body to sprint down the corridor to the open vestibule and its inviting safety. Again, I had no idea why it would be safer, but I felt certain it would be.

Regardless of my internal urgings, my sore and aching frame ignored all such commands and had me staring fixatedly at the wall that had been behind me. The wall itself was the same as its companions but there was an embedded organic growth that extruded from it a few feet from the floor. The growth was about eight feet high and four feet wide and looked something like a giant puckered anus made from oily tree roots if I was honest. The whole thing was surrounded by a brilliant, yet faint, blue aura that pulsed gently in time with my heartbeat.

In that instant, two fresh facts popped into the muddled spaghetti that were my thoughts. First, this rather gross anus thingy was how I got here. I’d been expelled from the puckered-butt portal moments before and that was why I’d ended up flat on my face. Secondly, blue was good and red was bad, very bad. I had no idea why red was bad beyond the obvious that red usually was, but I knew it for a certainty.

As I watched the pulsing aura flicker, the blue in the nimbus began to fade until it was almost pure white. Then after a few seconds longer, it started to take on an altogether rosier, pinkish hue.

Gathering pace towards red. God damn it, it was turning red and red was bad. Red was really fucking bad. Why the hell did I keep standing there like a complete frigging lemon on the chopping board waiting for the knife to fall as it turned red. I even took a few tentative steps forward.

Towards the danger.

Towards the balls-shrinking in terror danger.

Why would my body not listen to me?

I screamed or I tried to. My vocal chords were no more under my control than anything else while this happened to me.

And that’s when it hit me. A moment of clarity.

This wasn’t happening to me. This had happened to me.

A very long time ago, but also not, which was something so confusing I deliberately chose to avoid any further contemplation on for now.

As freaky as it may sound, I was in a memory of my own experiences that I had somehow forgotten and that’s why I had no control over anything that happened. I was merely along for the ride. It was also why I had cotton wool for brains. This was like a half-remembered dream that only became clear when the dream started over again. Flashes of what was to come would reveal themselves, but without context, my waking mind struggled to fit the puzzle pieces together.

Although my heightened state of panic resisted, logic forced it to abate somewhat. If this was a memory, then I had to survive whatever was coming, right? I couldn’t be remembering something that ended in my death. Death was pretty damn permanent, and I wasn’t a believer in the afterlife. Maybe I could relax and just sit back and observe.

As the aura reddened further while my body peered at it transfixed, it became denser and the pulses angrier with spikes that reached for my tallish frame that had been until that point, leaning towards it. The pulsing was joined by a horrendous screeching wail, a horrific alert klaxon that deafened both the remembering and remembered versions of me.

Finally, the noise was enough to bring me to my senses and become aware of the imminent danger I had to be in, and I started to back away from the organic portal before me. Slowly at first, and then with growing speed as the pulsing grew ever more aggressive.

I reached halfway before the pulsing and wailing alarm abruptly ceased. Almost as if the cessation of light and sound had been a signal, terrifying monstrosities started to emerge from the wall around the organic portal.

Eyeless spider-like things.

Each of them was about two feet across and had eight spindly legs covered in thick razor-sharp black hairs. The central thorax was about the size of a football with a gaping maw filled with rows of spiky teeth that dripped a rancid slime.

The first few that dropped onto the onyx floor after they pulled themselves from the wall and zeroed in on my retreating form, skittering after me face-hugger style. I didn’t see what happened behind me after that as I’d turned fully forward and was accelerating away from them as quickly as possible but what I heard was pure nightmare fuel.

There were lots of them and they emitted a high-pitched shriek that had me wincing with pain as I tried to cover my ears to block it out. The shrill noise proved to be more than cinematic effect, though. The cries sent my inner ear into a tailspin, and I lost all sense of equilibrium and thumped hard onto the black polished floor for the second time, inches from the vestibule and safety.

Logic fled and I urged my prone fallen body to crawl forward. My outstretched hand was already past the threshold and scrabbling for purchase on the equally smooth tiled flooring of the vestibule. Then the first four of the pursuing horde were upon me. Two of them crawled onto each leg, a third leapt onto my lower back and the fourth latched onto my recently injured shoulder. Their dripping fangs bit deep. I screamed in pain in response and knew my time had to be up.

I tried to roll over, hoping that might crush or dislodge some of the nasty brutes but there was no response from my body. Their bite must have contained a rapid-acting paralytic and I found myself frozen in place, awaiting the ignominious end. Which was when I felt something grab hold of my outstretched arm, the one that had been scrabbling on the tiles of the vestibule area, and pull.

My body was dragged from the corridor and into the vaulted large circular chamber. The polished onyx floor made it easier for my saviour to haul me through. At this point, all I could see was that the flooring of the vestibule was made of seamless black and white tiles.

The spider-things already on me stayed put, their toothsome jaws entrenched in my flesh.

“Gerroffhim, you nasty bastards,” a voice with a strong Bostonian accent called out.

Then whoever it was started to assault my attackers as I felt the jerks of their teeth tear at me when he kicked at them trying to force them off. I would have groaned with pain, but the paralytic was very powerful and had stolen my breath. Not being able to breathe was something that in the back of my mind was inducing a fair amount of concern. Along with everything else that had happened so far.

The recaller part of me chanted you must survive this to be able to remember over, and over, again, as a soothing mantra, that honestly failed miserably in the allaying of fears department.

After a few moments, my rescuer ceased kicking and punching at the spider-things attached to me.

He sucked in some air and spoke to himself more than me. “They don’t seem to be reacting to me at all. It should be safe to shoot ‘em, I reckon.”

The guy had a gun. Why didn’t he use that from the beginning? part of me thought. Then understanding penetrated the fog. He’s been concerned he’d hit me if he shot from a distance. But with the eyeless arachnids intently locked onto me, he could put the barrel of the gun up against their torso and aim it away from my body before he squeezed the trigger.

Bang!

The grip from the eyeless beast closest to my head relaxed and a second later it was pulled from my shoulder. It hurt, but without the powerful jaws gripping hard, the teeth slipped from my torn flesh easily enough.

Bang!

The creature on my lower back was similarly removed. It was at this point the muscles in my chest started to work again and I was able to draw in a shuddering and much-needed breath.

Bang!

Bang!

The two that had latched onto my legs were removed and then my rescuer rolled me over onto my back and I got a look at him for the first time.

It was Tom. Not that I’d ever met the man before but my patchy, occasionally out of sequence, memory pinged his name as soon as I saw him.

He was an older guy dressed in a dark brown security guards’ uniform that was considerably strained around the gut area. He wore a pair of black-rimmed glasses and had a neatly trimmed full white beard. His face was grizzled with signs of burst blood capillaries on his cheeks, but he smiled at me kindly as he assisted me in sitting up.

He had pulled me away from the entrance to my corridor, so I couldn’t see it clearly. No more of the eyeless spiders had rushed out and I could no longer hear their piercing shrieks that had discombobulated me earlier.

“That was a close one, eh laddie? Although if that Ashley fella’ is to be believed only our minds are here. But when I saw these blasted things attacking yer, I says to myself. Tom, best yer take no chances. That’s my name by the way. Tom. Tom Carter.”

Tom thrust his hand out to me and groggily I took it in mine.

“Torin Carter,” I managed to whisper out, the effects of the eyeless spider’s paralytic venom having a residual lingering effect.

“Well, whadda you know, we got the same surname. Maybe we’re related,” Tom said good-naturedly, and nudged me with his elbow.

“I’m from England,” I replied, my voice getting stronger. “You got any more bullets in your gun. I heard a lot of those things behind me.”

“Only got two left,” Tom confessed. “But don’t you worry about it. There is some weird barrier at the end of each corridor. Only the person that came out of the portal or anyone they are touching can cross the threshold into their corridor. I wouldn’t have been able to come get you if your hand hadn’t been on this side. Fortunately, these beasties seem to be bound by the same rules, so only the ones that had already taken a bite out of yer came with you when I dragged yer out.”

“How do you know so much about this place?” I asked with wary suspicion.

Tom chuckled lightly at my distrust. “I’ve been here for a while now. And, well, the others that arrived at the same time as me are the big brain types. They are the ones who figured most of it out.”

“Others?”

“Yeah, there were a bunch of us that arrived at the same time. Mostly scientist types from the university I work at, or I did until I took a turn…” Tom trailed off and stared away pensively.

With my motor control functions returned to me I got back up to my feet and tentatively inched my way around until I could get an askance view of the corridor opening. There was a swarm of the eyeless spiders filling the front half of the corridor. They were crawling and fighting with one another, vying for supremacy and the right to be at the front. But as Tom suggested, none of them crossed the threshold, not even when they sensed my presence and redoubled their efforts to get to me.

“Okay, Tom. You seem to be on the level. Where are the others now? Did these things get them too?”

“Goodness gracious, no. They are all fine, or they were when last I saw them. They are down in the room at the end of the big corridor with that Ashley fella’ I told you about. Says he brought us here. Most of the others seemed to know who he was, but not me. Besides, he kicked me out not long after. Said I was of no use to him on account of my health concerns. Very rude, if you ask me, but if he had’na sent me back I wouldn’t have been able to help you out. So, all’s well that ends well,” he shrugged as he finished.

“I suppose I should be grateful our host was such an asshat then,” I joked, and Tom laughed along.

“I was supposed to head back to my portal to return home, but I wanted to wait for the others, make sure they were okay. Not sure why you’re so much later than everyone else. We all arrived at the same time. I can take you to this meeting. Hopefully, the Ashley fella’ can explain things better than me.”

“Thanks, Tom. I appreciate it.”

We walked slowly across the large circular room until we reached the largest corridor, it was double the width of any of the others.

Tom glanced behind him, and I saw a flash of concern cross his face.

“Is everything alright?” I asked. “Are the eyeless spiders getting loose?”

“No, nothing like that, lad. Just I could have sworn that yer corridor wasn’t there when I got sent away a while back.”

I looked around worriedly.

Reacting to my concern, Tom reassured me. “Pay me no mind. Must be these old eyes playing tricks on me. Come on, I don’t know why, but it’s a fair old walk.”

I nodded to him, and he led me over the threshold and onwards to meet the mysterious Ashley.

You are reading story Corsairs & Cataclysms at novel35.com

And that was where this recollection abruptly cut out. I knew there was more to see. Lots more. It wasn’t even like what happened next was hazy, it was a complete blank.

Then as suddenly as the memory cut out, it returned, and I knew what I was viewing came later, maybe several hours later. Now I had Tom’s arm over my shoulder, and I was carrying the retired security guard as we exited the thoroughfare we had just gone into. Tom’s uniform had been shredded and he was bleeding profusely from dozens of wounds.

“Ashley did not like you, Torin, not at all,” Tom muttered groggily.

“The feelings mutual, Tom. You shouldn’t have stuck yourself out for me like that. He would have let you leave unharmed.”

“Couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t be right,” he gasped feebly from under my arm as I hauled him into the centre of the room.

I watched from inside my own head, knowing we had to get out of here. Something was coming, I couldn’t remember what that something was, but I could feel the adrenaline and the racing of my quickened pulse. It was maddening that I didn’t seem able to directly access the recollections that the me in these memories had to possess. He clearly knew more than I did, especially about what had just happened. I still had no clue as to who this Ashley person that Tom had mentioned was or why he wouldn’t like me.

I scanned the vestibule and one thing stood out immediately. The swarm of gnashing eyeless spiders were gone. I’d expected this to be the case but had no idea why I would know this. It had to be something I learned during the gap in this replay.

But their absence wasn’t the good news I’d been hoping for due to its nature. I was staring directly at the spot along the wall where the opening to my portal corridor should have been. The spot was one hundred percent, solid, black, craggy rock and it very successfully blocked my way out. And I wasn’t mistaken about my corridor’s position. The four dead eyeless spiders that Tom had shot earlier lay where they had fallen just to the right of the seamless barrier.

“Fuck,” I breathed out. “Tom, which one of these openings did you come out of?”

As long as we were in physical contact, we should be able to go through the unseen shield that prevented others from passing through.

“Tom? Which is it?” I implored him again.

There was no response from the older man. A quick check confirmed he had lost consciousness, but he was still breathing.

“Damn it,” I swore.

“My, what a pickle you seem to find yourself in, Torin,” an unfamiliar, yet urbane voice spoke from behind me.

I didn’t exactly spin around, not with me supporting all of Tom’s weight. I lowered him gently to the ground and prepared myself for the worst.

Behind me was a man sitting upon an ornate silvery throne that hadn’t been there seconds before when Tom and I had returned to the vestibule. He wore grey armour that seemed moulded to his form and flowed like liquid with any movement he made. Over the armour, he was clothed in a dark-green robe with a hood up that completely concealed his face.

I knew this odd man wasn’t the one who pursued me from the mysterious thoroughfare. Which was odd in and of itself, as I had no idea of what or who it was that pursued me.

“Who are you? You’re not one of Ashli’s minions are you,” I challenged him.

Even weirder, I knew that the name was subtly different from the one Tom had used. Something else I must have learned from the blackout.

“In this attire? Certainly not,” he chuckled and produced a golden goblet from somewhere and raised it into the depths of his shadowed hood and drank deeply. The action did not help me to get a glimpse of his face. “I am merely an interested neutral party.”

“You didn’t tell me who you are,” I pointed out.

“An astute observation,” he replied and said no more. Swirling the contents of his goblet in an almost taunting manner.

“I don’t have time for this bullshit,” I muttered and hunched down to put the old security guard over my shoulder.

The mysterious individual waited patiently until I had hefted Tom into a reverse fireman’s carry. It wasn’t easy with my shoulder injury and the extra pounds Tom carried around the waist, but I couldn’t drag him along the ground with the injuries he’d sustained.

Mystery man spoke as I took my first steps towards the nearest corridor, my plan being to try our luck until I found the right one.

“Quite right, you don’t have much time. Under a minute I’d say,” he commented, answering my statement-not-question.

I should have kept going, time was of the essence, but his needling had annoyed me. “Why are you even here?” I snapped at him.

“That, my young friend, is the correct question,” he crowed and clapped his hands together with glee. There was no longer any sign of the goblet he had just been drinking from. “I’m here to offer my services.”

“I’m listening,” I sighed.

Truthfully, I was. Holding Tom aloft on my shoulders while standing still was manageable but carrying him in my weakened state had already proved problematic. I’d only taken a few steps and had almost collapsed to my knees after each tottering step.

“Capital,” he declared. “A choice lies before you. The weak man would beg for my help. That help would be to transport him away from this place and the Earth. And also, from what he had so recently learned is to come. Leaving his home’s fate and it’s defence in the hands of his betters. In return, he would spend a decade acting as my servant, after which he would be free to leave. A small price to pay for guaranteed safety.”

What was to come? What had I learned? I couldn’t make such a decision without all the facts. When I tried to speak and demand answers to these questions, I recalled this was all just a memory.

I had to trust that my earlier self knew what the fuck green and smug was talking about. Before I said anything the mystery figure went on.

“The strong and wise man would instead ask for advice from those with greater understanding than him. Advice, freely given between contemporaries, with no cost attached. Guidance as to which of these many corridors belongs to poor old Tom and had a portal that could take him back to his imperilled world. Allowing him to return to his beleaguered home and endure through the many hardships and challenges before him, his planet, and his galaxy.”

I hacked out a self-deprecating laugh. “You must be mad. I can’t stop what’s coming. I’m not strong enough, nobody is.”

“It’s true. You aren’t strong enough…yet, but you could be if you walk the hardest of paths,” the green-clad man whispered. “Do you think Ashli would have reacted as it did if there was no way for you to thwart its machinations, Torin. The new world rewards the bold with strength and power. All of which you will need to prevail, though there is no guarantee of your success. But the choice belongs to you, Torin. Are you the weak man who begs for help from those greater than you? Or are you the strong one who heeds their advice and forges his own destiny no matter the difficulty?”

When he put it like that there was no rumination required. “I’m no helpless passenger, I make my own path. I’m no stranger to adversity either. Tell me which is the corridor out of here.”

“Excellent,” he exulted and pointed across the room.

Shimmering blue glyphs flared to life on either side of a corridor that had been three down from where I came in. I changed course and shuffled Tom back into a position that would make him easier to carry.

I reached maybe halfway when I glanced behind me. The mystery man was back to drinking from his goblet calmly watching me as I struggled to cross the room with the heavy load on my shoulders.

“Ashli said I shouldn’t have been able to come here. That I was a mistake, but one it had corrected. It was you, wasn’t it? You’re the reason I’m here,” I accused.

“Had you been a bit more polite when requesting my advice, I might have been inclined to answer that. A please can go a long way. Let that be a free life lesson for you,” he chuckled.

“Lying bastard,” I muttered to myself and trudged forward.

The mystery man’s laughter echoed across the room until I passed the illuminated glyphs and crossed the threshold of Tom’s corridor unimpeded. The laughter cut out abruptly much as the piercing screeching of the eyeless spiders had earlier. A quick peek also confirmed he and his gaudy silver throne were gone.

I pushed on and could see the faint-blue pulsing of the portal at the end of this hallway. Tom’s portal looked less like a puckered butt and more like an angry scar. I let out a hearty sigh of relief that the presence of both of us hadn’t turned the aura red or even diminished the welcoming azure of the blue.

The corridor wasn’t very long but I was sweating and grunting profusely by the time I reached the end and was ready to drop. We didn’t have much time, so I reached out and touched the centre of the scar. As soon as the tip of my finger made contact words burst into my head.

 

*** Pattern of Tom Carter recognised.

#Error# Two entities detected.

The Plexus Gateway node may only transport a single entity at a time.

Please break contact between entities and choose which entity to send. Tom Carter/Torin Carter.

Start the process over to transport the second entity. ***

 

God damn it! I snarled in my head. If I went first, I’d leave a helpless Tom behind. If I sent Tom first, then I wouldn’t be able to pass through the gateway myself as it wouldn’t recognise me without Tom being here.

That smug green-clad bastard could have mentioned this with the rest of his ‘advice’.

I thumped my fist into the wall in anger and then I felt a light tapping on my shoulder.

“Put me down, lad,” Tom wheezed.

I got down on my haunches as gently as I could and eased him off my shoulder and onto the floor. Regardless of my efforts he grunted heavily from the pain.

“Tom, do you think you can pull your way through by yourself?” I asked, but the poor old guy barely had the energy to lift his arm and wipe his brow. It was a forlorn hope, and I knew it.

“Not a chance, laddie. You’re gonna have to leave me.”

“Fuck that, Tom. I’m not leaving you behind.”

Tom patted me on the arm, gently warding me off when I moved to pick him up again. “It’s okay, Torin. There is…is nothing for me at the other end anyways. I’m sick, very sick, on my last legs. That’s why that Ash fella’ ain’t interested in me like the others. I’m a goner even if I did get back home. Why do you think I was hanging around here after he kicked me out? It certainly wasn’t for the view,” Tom managed to chuckle weakly at his joke.

His weak chuckle turned into a wet coughing fit and his lips were coated in scarlet blood. “Reckon I don’t have long, lad. Best you go before I pass. Not sure if it will work after that.”

It hurt to even consider leaving him behind, but Tom was right. Delaying would only doom us both.

“You’re a good man, Tom Carter. Better than any of those assholes back there who looked down on you. Thank you,” I told him simply.

Trying to add anything else just felt inadequate. He smiled at me as his eyes closed and his body slumped. He hadn’t perished yet, but he couldn’t be far from it. With no more time left to waste I mentally selected my name from the two options of who to send.

I stood without delay and pushed my way through the membrane covering the organic scar embedded in the wall. There was a brief sensation of falling and suddenly I was back in my apartment sitting on my crappy orange couch desperately searching for the remote control to the television that had just switched off.

The memory I was trapped in had returned me to a few minutes before all this weirdness had begun. I watched as I wandered about my apartment confirming the power was out and then opening the door for Victor and his beautiful stepdaughter.

As I listened to Victor try and shake me down for the second time, I started to grow a bit concerned. The point at which I entered this strange half-assed recollective state was fast approaching.

Would it start all over again? Would I be trapped in an eternal loop, stuck watching myself? Screaming wordlessly into the void. Unable to affect any change in my circumstances.

As the precise moment struck and I felt the forced blink for the second time the voice of my mystery benefactor-slash-meddler echoed through my mind.

I’m not surprised the transference has shaken a few things loose. It is going to be a grand inconvenience repeatedly suppressing this knowledge, Torin. I hope you appreciate the efforts I’m going to on your behalf.

Liar. You wanted me to do this, and I don’t want to forget.

True enough, but it’s for your own good. Knowing too much will change your behaviour and paint an even bigger target on your back. The one you are already carrying is plenty big enough. You are no good to me, dead.

I don’t understand.

You will. And while we’re chatting, I’d just like to remind you that you chose this, the harder path. You have no one to blame for where it leads but yourself.

What does that even mean?

I didn’t get an answer before all those thoughts and knowledge was swept away.

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